We have enough time to get old

Of course I could regale you with tiresome stories of where I've been and what I've done but this is far more interesting:


It is my new Givenchy coat. I found it at an organic food market, being hawked by the one merchant who wasn't' selling sour dough bread, buckets of mandarins and bags of raw hazelnuts. Instead she had a table full of scarves she had knitted herself and a rack of clothes she found in charity shops in her district. This baby, a beautiful leather printed with the iconic Givenchy houndstooth, is one of the reasons I'm considering moving in with her. This is another:

It is a silk-linen mix drawstring jacket made by (sharp intake of breath, grave unblinking eyes) Dries Van Noten. It is unworn. "Where did you get this?" I asked her as I handed over the twenty dollars she was asking. "Oh, my boss's friend has a lot of clothes she never wears and just gives them to me to sell."

On second thoughts I may move in with her boss's friend. While I contemplate that notion I invite you to admire the detail of both garments:
Perfect colours, goes with all my boots and scarves.

Ah Dries, all of your devils are in your details.

Tomorrow is the start of the core of the proper Sydney winter. It last for about six weeks and while it frequently incites snorts of derision from our Northern Hemisphere cousins, it does actually get quite cold. Because I am, as a result of my two week absence, grown a little unreliable, I am hovering between two garments tomorrow. One is the vintage navy blue Hermes skirt I bought in New York when I was there in March:

The other is an entirely impractical Prada skirt I bought at the same store in the same assault on my credit card:

I've been waiting all year to wear this, waiting for an occasion where I seriously want to be diverted from unhappy circumstances by the intense loveliness of a garment. Tomorrow with its five degrees Celsius and generally Mondacity could well be that circumstance.